I always hang in a buffalo stance. I do the dive every time I dance.

I'm sitting here designing some shelves with NPR in the background, some modern music program. They played something that sounded good—female vocalist, a little mournful, a lot of production but not overkilled, reminiscent of Cowboy Junkies or Concrete Blonde. It was the kind of song where I vaguely kept an ear out for the artist's name. It turns out that it was "Falling Down" from Scarlett Johansson's upcoming album of Tom Waits cover songs, with David Bowie doing some background. It was actually quite enjoyable. After listening to samples over at Amazon, though, I'm reserving judgment on the album as a whole until I give it a full listen. "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" sounds like the Pet Shop Boys and Paris Hilton got together.

Edit: There's a video bit down the page at the Amazon link on how the idea came about. After some photos and music, it's just Scarlett and the producer talking. It's really unpretentious. Just like I was surprised at how good "Falling Down" sounds, I was surprised at the interview bit. The heavy production was intentional from the beginning on everyone's part, not just a way to hide hack vocal talent.

Tonight, I had the experience of making a memento of a thing's absence. I've done this once before. It wasn't planned and it didn't feel good. This time, number two, was calm and sweet and perfect.


"It's jade. I bought it at the Hong Kong jade market when I was about ten. It's been to Seoul, Korea, and a layover in Japan. It's been to Calgary, New York, Cleveland, Phoenix, and San Francisco. ...And I think it wants to keep going."



My friend Heather is moving to Portugal with no plans to return. Her going-away party was Saturday, but tonight was the last time I would see her, probably ever. As I walked into the M Bar, she pulled out a thick manila folder of my college papers I'd lent her to help her in her writing, and a book she thought I'd like.


"I have something for you, too." A small pendant, a carved scimitar.

"It's beautiful. What's it made of?"

I forgot that downtown Portland traffic west of Fifth is a goddamned clusterfuck these days. The city is doing a major remodel of downtown's transit mall, incorporating light rail, streetcar lines and bus lines. Streets are torn up, sewer pipes are being replaced ("while we're in there..."), all kinds of crap are going down. Three lane streets are being reduced to one lane, being routed elsewhere, sending asshole commuters like me in circles if we forget even for a second which lane you have to be in to not go into said circle (what, you thought I was kidding? I made no less than three 360-degree loops over the course of 20 minutes). I'm okay with my normal freeway exit, but when I, you know, run an errand and get off the freeway, I get to experience the shitstorm that is modern downtown Portland traffic.

At least I know it'll be back to normal eventually.


In other news, I was downtown on foot several months ago and got to watch an excavator hit a snag and end up pulling up a thigh-sized valve from an old scrapped water main, disconnected and left buried. I still regret not asking the supervisor if I could have it. Hi, I am an industrial geek.

··· Free Range Kids, a blog about giving kids more freedom than is conventionally deemed acceptable in modern US society. It's a backlash against stranger-danger paranoia and such.

When I was a kid, I was allowed to roam wherever I wanted, pretty much. I wasn't allowed to ride buses until junior high, but I effectively ignored that order. I was given a cheap digital watch and told to be home at a certain time. That was the end of it. I often walked several miles to my friend Danny's house after he moved (off of bus routes). I'd pack up my Nintento 8-bit deck with the accessories and games that I'd bought with my own money, sling the bag over my shoulder, grab my walking stick and go. Did I mention that we lived half a mile from the San Francisco county jail? Sure my mom got nervous, but she very, very seldom actually entered freakout mode. I turned out fine and very self-reliant.

THIS IS NOT MEANT AS PARENTING ADVICE. I don't give parenting advice, to anyone, ever. In 1999, a coworker of mine in a Cleveland cancer research lab had a baby who was teething. I flippantly mentioned that my friend Jacob's parents had rubbed his gums with whiskey to alleviate teething pain. I said it in that "well isn't it weird that that worked!" way, but as a response, she gave me a searing, cold look of death. "Well," I thought, "that's the last time I do that." I've never looked back.


··· Mildly creepy Hilary and nipply Natalie pose for photogs. Wooow. This is just... odd.


··· Gees, you can't look away. Especially when you recognize the pattern and you realize what's coming. I remember seeing this ages ago, but wesa reminded me of it.


··· 42 ways not to make trash. Via wesa. You're a star, girl.


··· Crazy beautiful steampunk sci-fi drawings. I haven't been so awed by art in months. I archived every single one.


··· Check the video in this article for comic book sweetness. Link and diction via heatray.


··· Canadian Beaver Buzz (SFW).


··· Young me, now me. This is mildly amazing. Makes me want to dig up old photos. Via smandas.

I need a motivational Dalek. My head is still in a fog from this cold and I can't do anything. I just picked up stuff for cornmeal pancakes and all I want to do is lie down. And I know I wouldn't actually sleep, which sucks.

Oooh, the library has Sunday hours these days. That's some motivation. I'm all bookless.

( Lit update: )

··· Protest Culture -- Ad Hoc vs Institutional, and What it Means. A speech by Clay Shirky at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law. Very interesting. Via Boingboing.


··· Dog food commercial voiced by Tom Waits.


··· Somewhat amusing interview with George Clooney (text).


··· Good little short sci-fi story: "Wikihistory".


··· The current, startlingly sci-fi-ish state of a certain tissue regrowth method.


··· Top 5 reasons why "The Customer Is Always Right" is wrong. Via Kottke.


··· The weirdest car accident you'll hear about today.


··· This Old House's Home Inspection Nightmares vol. 10.

I have a chest cold with congestion down low and a sore throat up top. This means that every ten minutes or so, I cough up a dozen straight pins.

This morning I got up at eight, showered-dressed-ate, then decided not to head up to my aunt's in Clatskanie for handyman duty. This was due to snow at her place and not my being sick. But I felt worse and worse and ended up napping from noon to 5:30. DA-YUM.

··· Sears Craftsman skeleton ad. I find this really, really cool. Via Boingboing.


··· I didn't notice it either, at first (Cyanide and Happiness comic). Oh, and communism, capitalism, and fascism can all exist within democracy—there doesn't have to be any dramatic change in the basic democratic system to vote in extreme socialism or fascism. We've seen that a relatively impressive level of fascism can occur through simple inaction.


··· The Luther Burger. No. Just, no.


··· Comic: Tesla: The Celibate Scientist. It's just the one comic. The artist has asked The Internet to send in photographic recreations of the last panel [Link].


··· Yootoob: SPEEEEEEED!!!. Via justinbastard. The singer? WANT, as she is attractive.


··· All the water on Earth, and all the air on earth, depicted as spheres posititioned over Europe on the globe. Via Boingboing.


··· Not just a little bit creepy: 'Creepy gnome' terrorises town [sic]—article with video. A strange little pointy-hatted, sideways-walking figure was caught on cellphone video late one night in a South American town. It just looks weird and vaguely comical until one of the guys screams and the video ends. CREEPY. It's probably a prank of course, but it doesn't look like a normal adult somehow shot out of scale and it doesn't look like a child. Its proportions seem a little consistent with some flavors of human dwarfism I've seen. It's still weird. What do you think?


··· The Coolest Dog on Earth. Video, sfw.

My sister's water heater stopped making hot water yesterday. It was late enough that I didn't want to go down to take a look, but promised to come by the next day after work. Of course, I got 80% home before I remembered. Turning around and fighting outbound commute traffic was not on the agenda.

So later in the evening I headed down. My brother-in-law and I got the model number off the thing and went to the manufacturer's website to download the manual. I printed off the page with the relighting instructions, hoping it was just a pilot light out. Ruud apparently doesn't provide a way to search for materials by model number, naturally, so I used their "find your materials" website dealie. The instructions assumed the model had a piezoelectric relighter. It did not. We futzed around for a bit and got it lit and functioning, then went inside and red-pen-edited the printout for posting next to the water heater, for future reference. As I was showing Sarah the controls and making disparaging comments about the bad instructions from Ruud, she pointed to a giant decal above the controls labeled "RELIGHTING INSTRUCTIONS".

"You guys didn't see that?"

...*chirp*...*chirp*...


I told her that if it happens again soon, it might be a problem with the thermocouple, but it was probably just a freak breeze.

RTF Giant-Ass Decal, Andy.

I just watched The Station Agent. Twice if you count a rewatch with the commentary track. A couple of things don't make as much sense as the filmmakers seem to think they do, but it's definitely worth your time. Peter Dinklage is a bad, bad man.

In other news, I'm checkin' Craigslist and the cheap Subaru wagons are coming out of the woodwork again. Traffic in the below-$1500 range was almost nil in late fall and winter, but now... Man, I just can't wait until the stars line up and I decide it's time.

··· Here's an interesting one that got sent to me: Does Experience Matter in a President? The piece's answer: not so much. But the journey to that conclusion is rich with historical references and information—it's a lot packed into not much space. Add in this article's attitude with this deep delve into Obama's and Clinton's respective records in Congress carried out by a Dailykos author (via wesa), and it's clear that Obama has a hell of a lot more going for him than just uplifting speechification.

One thing he will never have, though, is several years of sharing a bed with a sitting president, hearing him talk candidly about what happened and what he did and why. But even that "experience" is of questionable utility: the world and domestic political climates are drastically different now than they were when Bill was in office. When the red phone rings at three AM, I don't want the decision maker scrying from outdated models.


··· Anonymous vs. Scientology: the London protests as related by deathboy. An excellent account. I know the cost of living is horrendous, but I'd really like to try living in London for a while sometime. London police win over Portland police any day of the week, it would seem.


··· Sarah Silverman has something to say to Jimmy Kimmel (Yootoob; NSFW audio even though the bad words are bleeped). Backstory here.


··· These are the rules. Some guidelines for covering your ass in internet usage. Remarkably concise and useful.


··· I figured some folks who read this would like this shirt. I do.


··· Yootoob: Barney & Tupac audio overdub. The kids are posse and backup dancers.


··· Faildogs.


··· Hey, this is a good one: How to Inoculate your Children Against Advertising. Via wesa.

Okay, this one, apart from a few flecks of red-purple, didn't even have an interesting color. I did pick up the berry notes in the flavor, but really, really, it wasn't enough to excite me. Though I would prefer to eat these instead of regular oranges, they're not worth the price hike by a longshot.

Today was a recovery day.

( random crap )

I am: Isaac Asimov One of the most prolific writers in history, on any imaginable subject. Cared little for art but created lasting and memorable tales.

Which science fiction writer are you?

Does this mean I'm thoughtful and interesting, but dated and goofy-seeming these modern days?

··· 50 things I've learned in 50 years, a partial list in no particular order: a blogger sounds off. I only really disagree with #9. I've worked in a call center, where a persistent cough simply is not an option. Cough medicines do work. I'm still working at #2, but I've gotten much better at it than I have been in the past.


··· Hot, hot steampunk art action, lots of it. Damn, seriously, this is voluminous. And it absolutely reeks of China Mieville. It's like Giger meets Victorian-flavored reality.


··· Pet armor via Turducken.


··· So slime molds can learn. I have to sit in the corner and rock for a bit now.


··· Copied from Boingboing, copied from Mario: "Michael Swanwick does this way cool thing where he writes a short short story, then puts it in a bottle and seals it, then destroys all other drafts and incarnations of the story, thus creating a unique object that you would have to destroy if you wanted to read the story." [Boingboing link].


··· When I go over this page, I suddenly understand all the bitter little Marilyn Mansonites out there. It's a list of 100 memorably awful and prejudiced online quotes from Christian zealots (or trolls, hard to say).


··· Clearing your cookies can save you money on airfare.


··· Holy krap, look (dew-covered bug extreme macro photo).

Been a while on these. The links may be stale, but they've gotta be dumped.


··· Yootoob: Asylum Street Spankers' Stick Magnetic Ribbons on your SUV. If I wasn't absolutely certain that it would either get stolen or get my car vandalized, I'd get my "spice must flow" icon on one at Supportourribbons.com (that's actually where I made the pic from which I got the icon). Via dariens_haircut.


··· Yet more Yootoob: How It All Ends, great video, apparently made by a super-enthusiastic young science teacher about global warming and risk management. Cornball, but amusing and informative.

··· Wait, what? You can fix stuck pixels on LCD monitors?


··· Look at this lovely steampunk jewelery. Via steamfashion.


··· Hooray for mouth eyes! (Worth1000 photoshop contest). Not found via Boingboing, though of course it showed up there too.


··· Privacy International's map of surveillance societies around the world. Wait, Greece?


··· These cast metal puzzles sure seem neato. Via steamfashion.


··· Yootoob: funny PSA. Via piehead.